The International Olympics Committee have decided to allow transgender athletes to take part in this year's Olympics without undergoing sex reassignment surgery.

Previously, according to guidelines set in place by the IOC in 2003, transgender athletes were required to have sex reassignment surgery followed by at least two years of hormone therapy in order to be eligible to compete.

But now, surgery would not be a requirement for female-to-male transgender athletes, allowing them to participate in men's competitions. For male-to-female transgender athletes however, the athletes are required to demonstrate that their testosteron level is below a certain cutoff point for at least a year before the competition.

These rules that the IOC has implemented for the upcoming Olympics in Rio are simply recommendations and other sports federations are not required to follow suit.

Sports fans, what are your thoughts on the matter?

Is the IOC taking the right steps? Can this affect the outcome of different sporting events ? And can we expect to see changes in other sporting bodies such as the MLB or NFL?

Comment below on what you think!

@shannonl5 I dont remember the name exactly but I can look it up. I believe it was on the discovery channel but dont quote me on that. It was DEFINITELY that cluster of shows. I'll try and look it up later tonight.

@Straightshooter Haha I'm not saying I don't get it. I do get it. I'm just not grasping the validity of the experiment because I don't believe that humans are born to act and think in certain ways as soon as they are born. And I would be interested to see how things would turn out if boys were given barbie dolls as soon as they were born and girls were given cars when they were born. I do believe that by the time they turn 4, they might not act the same way that they did in the experiment you are talking about.

I also don't know any societies that bring up their boys in what we might label as the "feminine" way from the beginning. And the fact that the experiment was conducted on kids between the ages of four and eight leads me to believe that these kids have already been influenced and taught to act in a certain way based on their genders by their family members and others around them.